Way Out
by Haelia
Summary: When Sherlock begins a rapid downward spiral, John is scared and uncertain. Fortunately, he receives help from an unexpected source. Prompt fill.
1. Chapter One

**A/N: For HilsonMarvey27. Please enjoy!**

* * *

The East End flat was trashed. It was clear from the décor that it had once been a very nice home – small, but warm and welcoming. The furniture, drapes, and wallpaper all beamed out at the inhabitants in sunny yellows and grassy greens, interrupted periodically by a fat vase of bright satin flowers, most of which were now tipped and broken. The glass coffee table was overturned; the television set blared a snowy screen in response to the DVD player having been unplugged. A framed photograph lay broken on the sage-hued carpet: a blushing couple on their wedding day. Surrounded by all this destruction lay the body of a woman, a brunette beauty in her early thirties.

"Has anyone touched her?" Sherlock demanded, standing at the threshold of the sitting room with both arms out to hold back anyone who might wish to enter. He spoke over his shoulder to Lestrade, and his tones were clipped, each word succinct. "Has she been moved?"

"No," Greg answered. "We've been waiting for you. Forensics has been in to take photographs, but that's it."

"And?"

"Neighbour called it in. Said he heard a scream and some commotion coming from the Ericksons' flat. Inspector Taylor found the body of... Catherine Erickson... just as it is. Cause of death looks like a heart attack, we'll know more after an autopsy – but the room is in a shambles. Obviously there was a struggle. There's a white powder on her lips, so we think she might have been poisoned."

"Orally?" John chimed in, peering into the room from behind one of Sherlock's outstretched arms. "Could someone be forced to swallow poison?"

Lestrade shrugged. "We've seen that happen before, haven't we? S'why I called you two."

Sherlock sniffed and floated away into the sitting room, bending low to examine the body, his sterile gloved hands flitting over her upturned face, her throat, her wrists. He unbuttoned her blouse and examined her torso, snapping out the magnifying glass to inspect her collarbones. John started to follow, but Sherlock held up a hand. "Wait," he said swiftly. After another moment's consideration, he stood and walked away from the body, toward the threshold. He turned a full circle and swept his hyper-alert gaze over the room.

"Well?" asked the DI.

"She wasn't murdered," Sherlock said, sounding unsurprised by his own conclusion.

Lestrade blinked. "What? How's that?"

"Look at the carpet!" Sherlock ordered, his voice thin with impatience. He knelt and swept a hand over the short fibres. His glove appeared to turn the carpet a slightly darker shade of green, until he moved his hand back over it and it returned to its original colour. "As the fibres are pushed against the grain of the weave underfoot, they appear darker because of the sheen of the thread. So, every time someone steps into this room, they leave a footprint." He straightened and gestured toward the room as a whole. "Leaving out the prints left by your men and by me, do you see the signs of a struggle in the carpet?"

John and Lestrade both looked. They could make out Sherlock's narrow footprints, as well as two other pair criss-crossing this way and that, but they all looked normal, unhurried. Sherlock swept back into the room and pointed at one of his own prints. "That's the print of a normal gait. They all are. John." He waved his flatmate into the room.

With a glance at Lestrade, John entered the room. Sherlock took him by the arm and placed him in front of one of the upturned vases. "Suppose I pushed you into that table there. You'd resist." The detective placed his hands flat against John's shoulders and pushed gently, a small-scale mimicry of what would have been done to the woman lying dead. John responded in kind by bringing up his hands in a defensive pose, trying to push Sherlock away while retaining his balance. Sherlock pushed harder, for effect, and John stumbled back. Sherlock caught his flatmate before he fell, and then pulled him away from the scene of their struggle. The two of them gazed down at the carpet.

The prints they had left behind were far different from the others. Sherlock's were pressed harder into the carpet, and John's dragged backwards, leaving wide swaths of dark fabric before the pitter-patter of his off-balance stumble.

"Got it," Lestrade said, nodding in agreement. "Then what killed her?"

"Well, the poison, obviously." Sherlock knelt beside the body again. He swept a finger over the woman's lips and lifted it to his face, sniffing it once before dabbing it lightly against the tip of his tongue. He stood, turned a circle, and then re-examined the body. Soon, his face darkened and he scowled. "Suicide," he spat without warning, rising and snapping his gloves off.

"Suicide?" Lestrade repeated, dumbfounded.

Sherlock's glare could have lit the fireplace. "_Yes_. She's trying to frame her husband, wanted it to look like he'd killed her, and he wasn't even here. There are no defensive wounds, no substantial bruising or obvious injuries, and yet the destruction of the room seems to indicate there was some sort of massive struggle here. Furthermore – poison? Administered orally? Why go to the trouble of procuring and then forcing her to swallow poison when he could have just as easily shot her in the face or slit her throat? If he was going to poison her, he would have put it in her morning coffee, her food, her make-up, wouldn't have forced it down her throat, it'd be too difficult, and the point of poison is subtlety in the first place. On the other hand, she couldn't slit her own throat or shoot herself – women are far too vain and primarily commit suicide by poison or overdose. Only she wasn't expecting her poison of choice to leave behind a residue on her lips. It's obvious: Mrs. Erickson killed herself, but trashed the room to make it look as if someone else had – _probably_ her husband."

"But why would she do that?"

"Who cares?" Sherlock cried. He stormed from the room, brushing past Lestrade to throw his used gloves down into a waiting bin bag. "She's dead, it was suicide, work it out. Can't be that hard. Unhappy marriage, boring housewife's life, cheating spouse. Pick one!" He snatched his coat from a kitchen chair and shrugged into it, fingers flying over the buttons. "Call me when a _real_ case comes up."

John and Greg were left gaping at each other across the sitting room.

"What's his problem?" the DI asked, frowning.

Sighing, John shook his head and turned up his palms. "You know what he's like when there aren't any cases. He's been like this for weeks now."

Lestrade's frown became a scowl, and he stared at the floor.

John cleared his throat. "Don't suppose you've got any cold cases he can work on?"

"No, not a thing. He solved them all during the last dry spell."

"_All _of them?"

"All of them."

* * *

_Thank you for all your suggestions_. John typed, rapid-fire, into the text field of his blog. _But I really think what Sherlock needs right now is for someone to be murdered, kidnapped, or otherwise maimed. Unfortunately._

Amidst a chorus of disapproving whines from Sherlock, John had blogged the dry spell. "I don't want anyone thinking we've abandoned the blog," John had countered. "All I'm going to do is give a short update letting them know we're still around, but having a bit of a lag in work. Sherlock, this blog pays our rent. _Especially_ when there are no cases." And it was a fair point. He hadn't been anticipating the enormous response, however.

Within hours, six users had commented on the most recent post, all of them suggesting different things for the boys to do with their time. _Take a holiday! _said one. _Enroll in a course at the university_, advised another. _Write a book_, suggested a third. And on it went, until John's e-mail was overflowing with the thoughts of the well-intentioned, hundreds of messages from eager fans who joked good-naturedly about Sherlock's plight or made wise, thought-provoking suggestions as to what they should do with their time off. One person said that John and Lestrade plot a crime of their own. Someone else built on that comment and declared that it ought to be Lestrade who disappeared, and John could steer Sherlock off the right trail for a couple of weeks. John was ashamed to admit that he was sorely tempted. This dry spell was maddening for everyone involved, and John was growing weary of the increasing insanity of the resulting 'experiments'.

"I think I'll take a walk," Sherlock announced out of the blue one evening. He already had his coat on.

John peeled his drowsy gaze away from the telly and looked over at Sherlock, unsure that he'd heard him correctly. A walk? No eyeballs in the oven? No new poisons to test on the neighbour's dog? "It's late," he said, but there was a little voice in his head that told him not to get in the way if Sherlock was actually going to invest his time in something at last. Even if it was as aimless as a walk. At least he wasn't moping around the flat or setting John's hair on fire.

"Bored," Sherlock offered in response. He wriggled his hands into his gloves, pale eyes glowing in the eerie light of the television.

"Maybe you'll run into a mugger." It was a joke, of course – _ha ha, then you won't be bored, will ya? _–but John tensed just as soon as the words escaped his mouth. He straightened a little. "Want some company?"

Sherlock waved him off. "No, I'm fine. Won't be out long. Don't stay up."

They said their goodbyes, and John sat up a little, fishing his mobile out of his pocket. He had every intention of staying up.

Fortunately, Sherlock returned just forty-five minutes later. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold, but he looked the better for it, and his mood seemed improved.

"Good walk?" John asked, rising and stretching as he prepared to head up to bed.

Sherlock nodded. "It's nice to get out once in a while."

John thought this was a very odd thing for him to say, but didn't mention it. Sherlock's nosedives into boredom often made him do odd and eccentric things, and John was quite used to it. He shrugged it off. "Good," was his reply, and he excused himself to bed.

The next day dawned with still no worthwhile cases. E-mails trickled in throughout the day with requests for help with the mundane – missing pets, adulterous spouses, burglaries and break-ins. "Not even a four," Sherlock proclaimed, reading over John's shoulder. He huffed. "I'm going for a walk."

"Alone?"

"If you don't mind."

And so it began: Sherlock's walks. They were his response to boredom, it seemed, and John was glad at first. It seemed that the activity – or maybe the cold – brightened Sherlock's mood just a shade. At the very least, it distracted him for a little while. Days passed and it became a regular habit of Sherlock's to have a walk alone in the afternoon. He went at least three times a week at first, then four, and then every other day.

Gradually, though, whatever positive effect these outings had began to dwindle. Sherlock began returning home from these walks dark-eyed and tense, and often shut himself in his bedroom for hours afterward. The first time this happened, John thought the behaviour so odd that he wondered if his flatmate was ill or had run into trouble. He banged on the door of his bedroom and was greeted by a very not-ill but clearly irritated Sherlock, and so he backed off.

"It must be the lack of cases," John told Mycroft one evening. "Why are you worried about it? Don't you know where he goes?"

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't have time to follow my brother everywhere," Mycroft said thinly. "That's your job."

John's expression fell, but he chose not to respond to the comment. Instead he took a breath to steady himself, and said, "It's probably just not working for him anymore. Walking – wherever he goes – was a good distraction at first, but... well, you know him, he gets _bored_."

"Mm," Mycroft hummed, eying John carefully. "It doesn't worry you?"

"I'm always worried." John laughed mirthlessly. "But he comes back every time."

And it was true. Until one night, when it wasn't. Until one night, when Sherlock did not return home.


	2. Chapter Two

**Warning: Drug references.**

* * *

"What do you mean, _gone_?" Lestrade's voice was crackly and overly loud as he spoke too close to the phone.

"I mean gone!" John snapped, pacing the sitting room with his mobile clutched to his ear. "I've checked all the usual places, I've rung everyone. He went for a walk around eight and he's just – _gone._ Doesn't pick up his phone, doesn't answer texts."

"I'm on my way."

"Wait, Greg, don't you think you should – " But it was no use. The line was dead. John dropped his mobile onto the side table, walked the length of the room, and then grabbed up the device again. **Where the hell are you,** he texted for the twentieth time.

Lestrade arrived within minutes – lights and sirens and all, but he arrived alone. John let him in, and Greg brushed past him swiftly, his face grim and dark.

"I've already looked," John said as he followed the DI toward Sherlock's bedroom. "There's nothing there. No drugs. No clues where he's gone."

"That's the alarming part," returned Lestrade. He pulled out all the drawers of Sherlock's dresser, rifled through them each, tossing articles of clothing in a careless pile on the floor. Then he took out the drawers themselves, dropping them noisily onto each other. He knelt, feeling inside the dresser. Then he straightened and flipped the mattress, searching, crouching, feeling – under and on top of and in between every piece of furniture in the room. He made quick work of the entire bedroom, and stood sweating and panting in the middle of the destruction when he was finished. His face was pinched, his posture tense.

John ground his teeth. "You have to call this in as a missing person," he insisted. "What if he's been mugged or something? You _know_ he has enemies – what if someone got hold of him?"

"He's not missing," Lestrade said in a voice that cracked and broke. He turned despairing brown eyes on John, and the doctor felt his insides turn into an oil slick. "I know exactly where he is. Get your coat."

* * *

The only words John could think of to describe the neighbourhood they were driving through were _run down_. Even in the thick murk of the four AM dark, John could see the busted-out windows of abandoned houses, the remaining shards of glass glistening in the glow of the streetlamps like eyes peering out from the wasteland. Buildings on every street corner wore a ghastly shroud of graffiti, rude words and illegible phrases splashed on the walls in neon colours. The alleyways were deeply black snakes that wound between dilapidated structures, waiting to swallow up anyone stupid enough to wander close to their jaws. Lestrade's car was the only one on the street, the headlights cutting through the gloom too brightly, making animals and vagrants slink away, ghostlike, into the shadows.

"Where are we?" John breathed.

"Nowhere you want to be." Greg's fingers were tight on the wheel, the tendons in the backs of his hands standing out in sharp relief. Both men stared out the windshield, tasting the metallic tang of dread as the car crunched over potholes and rubbish. Lestrade's phone hummed in his pocket and he peeled one hand from the wheel to retrieve it, glancing once at the screen before dropping it into a cup-holder. "Did you ring Mycroft?" he asked.

John shook his head. "I tried his office twice. When I didn't get him, I gave up." He glanced down at the phone still buzzing in the cup-holder. _**M. Holmes Calling, **_the screen announced. "You want me to get that?"

"No," said the DI firmly. "Leave Mycroft out of this as much as possible."

John had nothing to say to that.

Shortly, Lestrade pulled the car close to the kerb and threw it into park, killing the engine with a deft flick of his wrist. The keys jingled between his fingers as he pressed close to John in the passenger seat, peering out his window at the building they were parked in front of. "I think this is it," Lestrade murmured, as though he were trying to remember where a mate's house was, and not looking for a long-missing Sherlock in a dangerous, decrepit neighbourhood. "Grab your bag and let's go."

The building looked no different from all the rest, except that it was the only one with a halfway collapsed roof. There was an old, official-looking sign on the door that forbade anyone from entering or occupying the structure, declaring it condemned, but the paper was faded, stiff, and wrinkled by months or years of rain and sun. In the greyness of predawn, John could see that the building itself had once been a small house, but now the paint was peeling from the walls and the windows were broken or missing. The front door pushed open at just a touch, and the whole crumbling structure seemed to inhale, pulling John and Greg inside its aphotic gullet, exhaling the acrid stench of decay and human waste.

The inside was worse than the outside, and looked like it was or had once been occupied by vagrants. In the corner of the front room was a pile of rags – someone's makeshift bed. Beside that a candle, wedged between warped floorboards, just out of the way of the _drip-drip-drip_ of a roof leak. Lestrade's torch swept the room, revealing more and more of a bare and squalid front room that appeared to be sinking into the very earth. A cat darted out from one of the cupboards in the adjacent kitchen, skittering away from the light.

John felt sick. Lestrade thought Sherlock was _here_? It was – what time? Four, five in the morning? Eight hours, maybe nine, had Sherlock been missing that long? He couldn't get his head around it – or he could, with effort, but he didn't want to. He wanted to believe Sherlock had gone out for a walk and his phone had died, or he was a little lost, or he'd decided to run some errands. Didn't want to find him here, didn't want -

"John."

Lestrade's hand was on his arm. John tried to sip a breath, but it wouldn't go in. He shook his head, waved a hand. _Just keep going_.

The floorboards complained underneath their cautious tread. Lestrade went first, lighting the way, and John followed, medical bag clutched in his hand like a lifeline. Greg had told him to bring it. If not for that, John would not have wasted the time assembling it. But Lestrade said he knew where Sherlock was, that he might be in trouble, that he should bring it. So he brought it.

There was a body on the floor of the tiny sitting room, on the opposite side of the house. Lestrade trained the beam of his torch on it, and both men saw a male figure lying prone, huddled into his coat with his hat covering his face. Dark, curly hair peeked out from beneath the hat and John felt himself tremble apprehensively. "Stay here," Lestrade ordered, moving swiftly across the room. He knelt and lifted the brim of the hat, then shook his head before returning to John. "Not him. Quickly, this way."

They prowled toward the back bedrooms, the torch's light flickering around each corner, illuminating filthy walls and threadbare carpet. Thick, black, spray-painted letters on the hallway wall caught John's attention: _**I am who I say I am, and tomorrow someone else entirely. **_And beneath that, in blood red: _**Let no one think I gave in. **_Greasy handprints framed the graffiti; a hopeless husk clinging to life in those words.

"Over here."

He peeled his eyes away, his heart climbing up into his throat as Lestrade spoke in a cautious half-whisper. John joined him, and together they looked into the gloom of the second bedroom.

And there he was. Sherlock was sitting against the wall in the far corner, half curled in on himself, head hanging low, but it was him. It had to be. The stark light of the torch illuminated a soft sapphire scarf and a wiry woolen coat piled on the floor beside him. He was wearing the same clothes he'd left the flat in – soft blue button-up and grey slacks – but the collar was unbuttoned and the sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. A mop of shining black curls obscured his face.

Without a second thought, John pushed into the room, his heart beating a frantic rhythm against his chest. "Careful," Lestrade warned, but John ignored him and set his bag on the floor, kneeling down beside Sherlock. Greg joined him then, but a sound from the other side of the house caused the DI to jump and look toward the door, half-crouched. "We need to get him to the car," Greg urged, sensing the danger presented by a house full of transients.

"A moment," John said, his voice shrill with strain. He was bent over Sherlock, tipping his head back, groping for a pulse in his throat and listening for the sounds of breath whispering through his parted lips. Both were too slow, too lazy, too weak. His skin was clammy and paste-white in the pitchy darkness and his clothes were wet. He did not respond when John shook him or when his name was spoken aloud. He needed warmth and fluids, immediately. John plucked at the back of Lestrade's coat to get his attention and the two of them hoisted the detective between them. They lurched unsteadily toward the door, half-dragging Sherlock who hung limp in their arms.

"It won't work like this," Lestrade said as they reached the narrow hallway. "Take the torch, I'll carry him."

"Here then, hang on a minute," John replied, slipping out from under Sherlock's arm. He doubled back for the coat and scarf they had abandoned and draped them over one arm before hurrying once more to Lestrade, who was making his way toward the front door with Sherlock curled in his arms.

Together, they situated Sherlock in the backseat so that he was lying on his side, knees bent to accommodate his long frame. John knelt on the footboard, unzipping his bag as Lestrade slid into the driver's seat. The car started and lurched away from the kerb, both of them wordless and tense until the crumbling house was far behind them.

"Does it look like an overdose?" Greg asked over his shoulder, driving too fast through the residential streets.

"No," John answered, and he heard the DI exhale. "Might have been close, though." With a clinical touch, he examined his friend, eyes alighting on the series of track marks dotting his forearms, the slick sheen of sweat on his wide brow. _How long_? he wondered. _And how did I not notice_? His fingers flew down the buttons of Sherlock's shirt, and he let the task at hand push the thoughts from his mind. Plenty of time for that later. Right now, there was a job to do. "I need a light back here." The cabin light above him came to life obediently, and John fell silent in the back of the car as he dedicated his concentration to the health of his friend.

They ran a red light at Marylebone and Seymour, and Greg spoke over his shoulder again, breaking a tense, prolonged silence. "How bad?"

"He's fine," John said, watching Sherlock's eyelids flutter as he dragged out the plugs of a stethoscope, "or he will be."

"I can't take him to hospital. They'll report what they find directly to the drug squad at the Yard."

"You can't do anything about that?"

Lestrade shook his head. "No."

John bit his lip. He wanted to know what Sherlock had taken and how much – and the only way to be certain was through a blood test, the tools for which he did not have at home. Not knowing would not impede his ability to treat him, but would certainly burn a hole in John's gut. He pushed out a harsh breath through his nose. "Fine, I understand. But if he gets worse, I may have to take him to Bart's."

"Got it." The car lurched left onto Baker Street.

* * *

It was well past six in the morning when John's heart stopped racing. He stood beside Sherlock's bed, watching the near-imperceptible rise and fall of his chest beneath the quilt. John's fingers twitched, aching to do something, anything, but there was nothing left to do. Sherlock had to sleep off what was left of the cocktail of drugs in his system, and until then, John was superfluous, a useless white satellite orbiting his broken friend. His shoulders caved in on themselves as his weariness caught up with him. _Turn around and walk away,_ his brain said, but his eyes were stuck, glued to Sherlock's face, so pale against the dark pillowcase. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them wide, blinking the room back into focus, and forced himself to leave the bedroom. Food and sleep, that was what he needed, though he knew he would not settle for the latter until Sherlock had woken.

Lestrade was folded into an armchair in the sitting room, looking much the way John felt. He glanced up as John entered. His gaze was questioning, but he did not speak.

John nodded wordlessly in response to the unspoken question and collapsed into the other chair, sighing heavily. "He'll be fine," he said raggedly and for what felt like the hundredth time. "He's just out of it. He needs fluids and rest, he'll feel like shit for a while, but he'll be..." He trailed off, realising he was repeating what he'd already said. For his own comfort or Lestrade's? Good question. He sank deeper into the cushions and stared at the empty fireplace.

The silence roared between them, churning with nauseating intensity. Now that the crisis had mostly passed, John's head was filled with the unasked questions and the guilt of the not knowing. It was surreal, all this – isn't that what people said when they were in a situation that felt unbelievable? Surreal? John felt as though he were living a nightmare. He _was_ living a nightmare, one he'd had several times before. He tried to remember Sherlock's face when he had announced he was leaving last night. _I'm going for a walk_, he'd said, as he had done so many nights before. Had John even looked up from his computer screen? Had Sherlock been hoping he would, been crying out for his attention, _Please please stop me_? But no, that wasn't true, wouldn't be true. Unless it was. Oh god, oh god...

"It isn't your fault," Lestrade said, and the deafening silence quieted to admit his soft voice. "You couldn't have known."

John could feel the DI studying him. He met his gaze dead-on, blue eyes bloodshot and glassy with exhaustion. "How did you know?"

Greg shrugged wearily. "I've seen it happen before."

"And the house? How did you know he'd be there?"

Slowly, Lestrade closed his eyes and shook his head. "He always goes there – _used_ to go there, I mean. There, or thereabouts. When he'd wasted all his money on cocaine and couldn't pay the rent." Beat. Two. Three. Lestrade took a breath. "It wasn't as if he didn't want to be found."

"What are you saying?"

"He _wanted_ to be found, John. If something happened. If he couldn't make it home. Or if... you know."

The urge to vomit crawled down John's throat again at the thought of Sherlock dying in that rat's den. The images paraded unbidden and unwelcome in his mind, the thought of Sherlock taking too much, realising it at the last second, fear tautening his gaunt features as he slid to the dank floor and watched death surge up to devour him. John swallowed and choked and buried his head in his hands. He felt Lestrade's hand on his knee. He shook his head and knuckled his eyes. "What now?" he asked. "This has been going on for weeks. It must have been."

The DI's phone buzzed from the side table. Mycroft again.

"You gonna get that?" asked John. "Wouldn't he want to know?"

"He'll take it better from you," Lestrade replied.

Neither of them answered the phone. The device continued to hum in cheerful spurts until Mycroft hung up or the voicemail picked up, and then it was quiet again.

Lestrade sighed into the gloom. "I have to go to work," he said, as though he didn't quite believe it. He looked over at John. "Will you be alright?"

John nodded.

"I'll check in later." Greg shrugged into his coat. He exhaled audibly and looked toward the bedroom. "There's a long road ahead..." he said vaguely, his eyes clouded.

With some effort, John pushed himself up. "I agree," he said in a low voice.

Lestrade walked reluctantly to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. He half-turned, brown eyes scanning John's features with the crease of a frown between his brows. "John, I'd... I'd like us both to sit down with him, when he's feeling better. I... we..." He floundered. They both knew that the roles they played in Sherlock's life were undefinable at best, but this was a side of Sherlock that only Lestrade had authority or knowledge with. How did they both fit? What would happen now?

Again, John nodded, and walked with Greg downstairs to the outer door. They stood together in front of it, quietly regarding their own shoes as they groped for solid ground. John wanted to ask questions, to find out what had happened way back then, before he'd known Sherlock, but he couldn't find the words. How does one broach a topic like that? What would he ask, anyway? His chest ached thickly.

"He'll be irritated when he wakes," Lestrade said quietly, and John realised that he had been studying him intently. "Keep Mycroft away from him and wait for me until you speak to him about all this, okay? I... This isn't the Sherlock you know, John, this is – "

"I know, Greg." _There it is_. John pressed his lips together and reached out to squeeze Greg's shoulder affectionately. "I'll take care of him."

"Yeah, I know. Let me know how he does and I'll swing by later."

"Yes, of course."

They said their goodbyes. John watched until the police car pulled away from the kerb, then slowly climbed the stairs back to his flat. As he closed the door behind himself, the stillness returned to 221b, settling into the carpet and John's hot, flushed skin, making his bones tingle and his lungs burn. He shook his head to clear it, but his ears were filled with the sound of rushing water, of howling wind.

The silence screamed.


	3. Chapter Three

**Warning: Drugs, illness, exaggerated comedown symptoms.**

* * *

The clock ticked down the minutes at a painfully slow rate. John checked it against his watch and found it to be functional, so the only explanation for the slowness of time was his own altered perception of it. His life was now moving in slow motion, seconds counted out by each lazy breath Sherlock deigned to take. He reminded himself over and over that his condition was perfectly stable, that he was literally sleeping off the cocktail in his bloodstream, but the sight of him was frightening: pale, spare, still. Sherlock all but disappeared beneath the bedclothes, and when the light was right, he appeared to be on the verge of death.

Lestrade stopped by around one, as promised, but had to leave again almost immediately – crime scenes were beckoning. John didn't fault him for it, but he did envy him the distraction. He needed something to focus his mind on, or it wandered to dangerous places.

Shortly after Lestrade's post-lunch visit, John convinced himself to go to Tesco. He'd spent a lot of the morning hours 'convincing himself' of different things. In fact, in order to motivate his body to move at all, he had to 'convince himself' to do so: lie down and take a nap, get up and eat, go and shower, do anything but stare at Sherlock's idiot face and wait for him to wake. Eventually, though, he realised they had almost nothing in the flat and that he would rather go now than leave Sherlock alone once he was conscious. So he 'convinced himself' to put on clothes and shoes and a coat, and he went to Tesco.

He knew it was a mistake when he returned and saw the Bentley parked outside.

Mrs. Hudson hovered just inside the outermost door, wringing her hands and staring up the staircase. "The British Government's in," she explained, her eyes apologetic. "Does what he wants, that one."

"It's okay, I'll handle him." John gave her a nod and started to go up the stairs, but stopped when Mrs. Hudson's spindly hand rested on his arm.

"It's the drugs again, isn't it?" she asked without prelude. "I always thought this might happen..."

John patted her hand, then disengaged himself as politely as possible, muttering a quick parting word before he flew up the stairs. Mycroft was speaking before he'd even gotten both feet through the door.

"A phone call would have sufficed. I deserve that much."

"You deserve to keep your nose out of other people's business," John said, surprising even himself with his acrimony. He pushed forward when Mycroft didn't reply. "A whole night he was missing before we found him, Mycroft – your _concern_ comes much too late." He held the door open.

In a petulant gesture much more characteristic of his brother, Mycroft sat to indicate he was going nowhere. "I attempted to contact both you and Detective Inspector Lestrade multiple times."

"And yet you provided no help whatsoever." John swung the door closed and crossed the room to set his shopping down on the kitchen worktop, then strode by Mycroft to check in on Sherlock – still asleep – before he shed his coat and toed off his shoes. "With your resources, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to locate him."

Mycroft heaved a long-suffering sigh, not moving as he watched John unload groceries from paper bags. "I am not nearly as omnipotent as you lot think."

"Or you'd like us to believe that."

"You think I would wilfully endanger my brother's life," he challenged, eyes quietly blazing behind a gilded visage of calm. "You think I allowed this to happen to Sherlock, to prove a point."

John's hands fisted at his sides once, twice, before he uncurled his fingers and hefted the milk into the refrigerator with unnecessary force. Yes, that was exactly what he thought: Mycroft could have been there, could have done _something_, but chose not to. Where was he while John and Lestrade were driving across town to rescue Sherlock from himself? Where was he while Sherlock was taking his 'walks' into god-knows-where? Where was he while his brother was circling the drain? "You should have seen this coming," he spat.

"You live with him."

"You should go."

The air hummed with tension. Mycroft was standing now, watching John's back as he shoved the paper bags into the rubbish bin, and he sighed heavily once more, tapping the end of his umbrella on the floor like a judge wielding a gavel. "I came to offer my assistance," he said.

"How magnanimous of you."

"For heaven's sake, John – do get control of yourself! Lestrade is an idiot and you are incapable of handling the situation as it stands now."

A new voice joined the conversation then, startling both men as it croaked from the edge of the sitting room. "Mycroft, get _out_." Sherlock was standing at the threshold of the hallway, pale as the sheet he had wrapped himself in, his lower half clad in cotton pyjama bottoms and his chest naked to the chilly air. He looked tired to the point of collapse.

Mycroft considered his brother carefully – the mussed hair, the pale complexion, the linen sheet pooled on the floor around his bare feet. He sighed mournfully – _poor lost soul!_ - and tried to exchange a meaningful glance with John, who was not playing the game.

Instead, John was looking at Sherlock, who stared back, his face betraying very little aside from nausea and irritation. Too slowly, Sherlock's gaze returned to Mycroft. "Name your terms."

"Rehabilitation centre."

"Absolutely not."

Mycroft's resolve fractured under the strain. He pointed an accusing finger at John, his eyes never leaving his brother's as he opened his mouth to say something else about Johns incompetence, but the words never passed his lips.

"Out," Sherlock snarled, before his brother could speak. He took a step forward, his expression dark, the sheet slipping a little from his shoulders as he balled tight fists at his sides. His eyes burned furiously. "Get out, Mycroft. Now!"

John gaped at the altercation unfolding before him. He couldn't say anything, couldn't intervene, as Mycroft stood his ground. John could practically see the British Government considering its options, doing the calculations in much the same way Sherlock would be, equations about trajectory and strength and the accuracy of Sherlock's right hook. In the end, Mycroft turned for the door. He said nothing further, but paused long enough to give them each their own _this isn't over_ look, a classic Mycroft glare that chilled despite its inherent harmlessness.

The door slammed, shaking dust from the walls, and Sherlock crumpled onto the sofa. John remembered how to breathe, and slowly exhaled, watching as his flatmate buried his head in his hands, fingers clawing through his wild hair. Sherlock was trembling ever so slightly. "How are you feeling?" John asked, not moving from the threshold of the kitchen.

"Oh, don't you start," Sherlock snapped, his gaze whipping up from the floor and affixing itself to John's face. "Let's have it. Let's have it right now, and be done with it, John."

"Sorry – what?"

"Go on then. _How selfish of you, Sherlock – what were you thinking – why didn't you say anything – how did it come to this – you need help. _Get it over with!" His pale features were contorted in an ugly grimace of anger that Sherlock had maybe once, twice directed at John before now.

John took a moment to remind himself that Sherlock was still under the effects of whatever he'd taken. He still wasn't quite himself. And John should not hit him. He reminded himself of that, and stuck his hands into his pockets so that they wouldn't make irritated fists at his sides. "Evidently I don't need to," he said.

Sherlock cradled his head in his hands again.

Cautiously, John went to his chair across from the sofa and sat down. He leaned slightly forward, elbows on knees, and clasped his hands together. Casual, nonthreatening. He watched the top of Sherlock's curly head, regarding him like a wounded animal that may strike at any moment. When he spoke, he did so calmly. "I need to know what you took and how much, so that I can treat you. But beyond that, my questions, this discussion, it will wait." He paused, and observed the detective's frame relax just slightly. "Sherlock..."

"I'm fine."

"I'd still feel a lot better if I knew."

Sherlock took a shuddering breath. "I don't remember." He swallowed painfully and lifted his head, running his fingers through his hair and fixing John with an open expression. "Honestly."

It was sorely tempting to try to analyse exactly what that meant for Sherlock's state of mind, but John forced himself not to. "Try. Anything is helpful."

"I... None of it is very clear. I must have..." He exhaled audibly and shook his head, wincing at the dizzy spell that followed. "Cocaine first, most likely," he said, as though he were reciting from a textbook. "Morphine after. I have a... ritual."

Something cold and painful slithered through John's insides. Intravenous cocaine with a morphine chaser – the stress of the combination could have arrested his heart, if he was doing this as frequently as John suspected. His stomach clamped down on a cold lead ball. "Separately then," he questioned guardedly. "One after the other, right?"

Sherlock nodded. "Usually."

_Usually_. John could have shaken him. It was dangerous either way, but speedballing the two – that is, combining both drugs and coadministering them – was flirting with death. Was momentary euphoria really worth the risk? He wanted to scream. Sherlock wasn't stupid, why would he do something so idiotic? He knew that Sherlock would say he was in control the entire time, that he had a handle on the situation, but John had a hard time believing that. Nobody was in control in that state. Restraint, though, is a wonderful thing, and John exercised his now and said nothing. He nodded his understanding and said nothing. He realised, slowly, that Sherlock was studying him, and lifted his gaze to meet the detective's.

"Are you angry?" Sherlock asked, his face unreadable.

John considered the question. He entertained the idea of lying – his relief at Sherlock being alive and mostly in one piece was true enough and far outshone his fury – but he knew that his friend would see right through it. He nodded calmly. "Yes."

The detective did not seem surprised by this. He pulled his sheet up around himself and sat back, staring at the coffee table between them. "How did you find me?"

"Lestrade," John said, surprised that he had to answer that question at all. He watched Sherlock carefully. He was still stuck in doctor mode: _cocaine and morphine, one after the other, the comedown must be awful_. In fact, if he had taken as much as John estimated – going by his built-up opiate tolerance, body weight, and the frequency with which he had been indulging lately – the comedown was not even halfway over and was going to get worse before it got better.

Silence again. Sherlock had his eyes closed now.

"Do you feel sick?" John asked, unable to sit still any longer.

Sherlock opened deadened eyes and shook his head.

"Then you're going to eat something."

The detective could muster no argument to this.

* * *

John was able to coax a boiled egg and a cup of tea into Sherlock before he pushed the plate away and curled up on the sofa. He was out cold again before John finished clearing the dishes. The quiet that descended then was comparatively more comfortable than it had been before, but it was anything but restful. John settled down with a cup of tea and the television remote, his eyes straying occasionally to the gaunt face, watching it change as nightmares came and went. He sent a brief text to Lestrade, updating him on the situation, and flicked through crap daytime telly.

Hours crawled by. Without really meaning to, John eventually succumbed to exhaustion and slept fitfully in his chair, waking at every whimper or movement that issued from the sofa. He dreamt of the slums where they'd recovered Sherlock, dreamt of finding him dead instead of unconscious. He dreamt of a Sherlock he had never met – younger, long-haired, lost and hopelessly addicted to a drug that poisoned his body with each stick of the syringe. He dreamt and dreamt, flickering deliriously in and out of sleep to the cadence of Sherlock's own nightmares, and then it was Lestrade who was shaking him awake as the yellowing evening sun poured into the room.

"It's alright, mate," Greg was murmuring, stepping back to give John some space as consciousness and understanding returned. "Steady..."

John roused himself sharpish, shaking the sticky mire of dreamworld from his head. _Sherlock is not dead_, he thought sluggishly. _Sherlock is here. Sherlock is okay._ He frowned, perplexed by Lestrade's unannounced presence in the flat.

"Door was unlocked." Greg's reply to the unasked question was quiet, a hair above a whisper – afraid to wake the other occupant of the flat. "Where is he?" He gestured toward the rumpled sofa where the flannelette sheet lay abandoned in a heap.

Suddenly, those last viscid vestiges of sleep slipped away from John's brain and he blinked at the vaguely Sherlock-shaped indentation in the sofa cushions.

As if on cue, there was a sudden crash and the sound of someone being very sick on the other side of the flat. Greg twitched, neck craning to see down the hallway, but John touched his hand and shook his head. _Let him be_. Sherlock ill was something John had plenty of experience with – no doubt the bathroom door would be locked and the detective would be loath to admit any interruption. Lestrade's eyes flicked toward John, and he seemed to understand. Rising, John stretched and made a vague gesture toward the kitchen.

They spoke in low voices as the kettle worked up to a boil, neither of them quite content with giving Sherlock his privacy but seeing little other option.

"I understand you had words with Mycroft," Greg said mildly, leaning against the sink as he watched John's back.

John's response was to huff and roll his eyes at the tea things.

"Good news travels fast," remarked Greg drily. He crossed his arms over his chest. "And Mycroft was pretty livid."

"I'll bet he was." He paused, turning to face the DI, his expression betraying some of his incredulity. "Sherlock threw him out. I thought they were gonna kill each other." He shook his head, turning back to the three mugs he was readying, carefully checking them each for experiments before putting anything in them. "They've always been at odds, but I've never seen them look at each other like _that_ before. It was..." Odd? Disconcerting? Frightening? Childish? He couldn't think of a word that meant all of those things at once. "It was weird," he said at last.

Lestrade was silent for a long time, chewing his tongue as he carefully chose his words. "Mycroft was never very tolerant of Sherlock's... habit. After three overdoses, I can't blame him." Bitterness had slipped into the DI's voice, edging it with a sharpness that John wasn't used to.

"_Three_?" Doctor mode clicked on again, and John re-evaluated the stress of combination drug use on a heart that had already endured three near-misses – perhaps more, depending how far back Sherlock's addiction went. All it would have taken was one little miscalculation. Just a little bit too much, and Sherlock's over-abused heart might have given up. Hell, even clean, he was at risk for a heart attack. Take into account the one time John was aware of that Sherlock's heart had actually stopped – _abrin poisoning, saved him with my own hands_ – and his chances changed significantly. And what about the effect on his brain? Surely he knew what he was risking each time he slipped that needle under the skin. Brain damage, neurological disorders –

A heavy hand was on John's shoulder. He stiffened, realising he had been clutching the edge of the worktop, white-knuckled, and that he was holding his breath. Lestrade saved him, cold fingers gently squeezing the high, tense plane of his trapezius muscle. John exhaled and returned to the present, nodding slightly to indicate he was back again. Together, the pair of them moved to the sitting room, John with two steaming mugs and Lestrade already nursing his own.

Sherlock appeared in the doorway just after they'd sat down, and froze there, eyes scanning the pair suspiciously.

"Sherlock – " Greg began, but the detective cut him off.

"Oh for _god's sake_," he moaned. "What is this, an intervention? Please."

"It's not an intervention," John said carefully.

"We just want to talk," Greg added. "Please, will you sit down?"

"That's what they say at interventions," Sherlock retorted sharply. "Really, you are taking this far too seriously – "

Greg stood, defensive. "No," he said, his voice inching up a decibel or two, "no, I don't think so, Sherlock. Are you completely daft? Do you know how we found you? _Where_ we found you? You could have been killed, or worse! People die every day from – "

"Don't quote statistics at me, Lestrade."

_He already knows them_, John thought, watching his flatmate with a growing sense of despair. It started as a nagging in the back of his head, but slowly swelled to a fever pitch. _What's the point?_

"Does it even matter to you that you're risking your life every time you go off and shoot up with god-knows-what? What if this had been it? What if this time, it was just a bit too much, and we'd found you dead instead of asleep? It was close, Sherlock, it was too close, and you can't go on doing this. We need to talk about this." Lestrade seemed to force himself to calm then, and lowered his voice. "Look. We just want to talk about it, to have a discussion. We're trying to help you."

Sherlock's lips thinned in annoyance. "It is not your business to discuss, Lestrade. Kindly stay _out_ of it."

Lestrade rounded on John. "Well, do you have anything to add?" he asked, his eyes pleading for help.

The room fell silent. John considered it, his stomach knotting in on itself as he realised the awful truth. He could feel the colour draining from his face, the tension sinking into his shoulders, and suddenly he was cold and bloodless. Slowly, he raised his eyes first to Lestrade's face and then to Sherlock's, so pale and drawn and lined with anger. "No," he said at last.

Sherlock blinked in bewilderment, surprise smoothing the crease of irritation from his brow.

Greg, for his part, gaped at him, betrayal coursing over his expressive features. "What?"

"I have nothing to add." John looked past Lestrade at Sherlock and held his gaze. He spoke slowly, evenly. "He knows already, Greg. He knows the fatality statistics for every drug, for every country in the world, to be sure. He knows that we're upset he's been using. He knows it's bad for his health. He knows everything. There is nothing I can say that will convince him to stop. He'll stop if he wants to." John took a breath, features hardening against the pain as he turned his gaze on the DI. "It doesn't matter what we think, because our thoughts are comprised of statistics and evidence, and he has all that information already." He stood then without warning, setting his mug on the side table, and immediately turned to go for his coat.

"Where are you going?" Lestrade asked, shocked, as John slid his feet into his shoes.

"Out," John replied curtly. He gave one backward glance, and it was just long enough to see the pain in Sherlock's eyes before he pulled the door shut.

* * *

The wind tugged at the trees, pulling off dry leaves and scattering them into the street. Sometimes it picked up the leaves that had already fallen and twirled them through the air like whirling dervishes in a mad flight to the sky. John sat on a park bench, shoulders curved in against the cold, passing his phone from hand to hand as he watched the leaves being torn from the trees.

He wasn't sure when he'd come to the realisation that he couldn't change Sherlock's mind. From the time Lestrade had told him he knew where the detective was, he had put his trust in the DI completely. He had not questioned his actions even once – Greg had seen this before, he'd known Sherlock longer. But somewhere along the way – perhaps as they were talking in the kitchen – the truth had sunk in. Sherlock does what Sherlock wants. And so when they'd sat down to have this little discussion, and Sherlock had resisted with all his might, John came to realise something: there was nothing he or anyone else could do. They were up against one of the greatest brains in Britain – possibly one of the greatest in the world. What hope did they have?

Now, though, as he stared at the chilly evening landscape and did battle with his actions, he couldn't help but wonder: what had anyone done the first time? Who had convinced Sherlock to clean up before? It _had_ been done – how?

The Work. John could remember Lestrade mentioning it, a long time ago. _I couldn't work with him if I knew he was using. It's a question of ethics. And if anyone found out, my whole team would have paid the price. It was that simple_. Well, that wasn't a problem now. Sherlock had freelance work now, he was a household name. All he had to do was wait and something would eventually turn up. So, again: What hope did they have of changing his mind?

_I just wish I knew why_, thought John bitterly. Sherlock had explained it before, or attempted to do so: _Existence, mere existence, is so dull. I am constantly trying to find ways of avoiding the mundane._ On some level, John could understand the desire to engage one's mind, but to take it this far? That he didn't get. Sherlock Holmes could solve a sudoku in under a minute and still get bored doing it, and maybe that was what he was failing to comprehend. His great mind needed constant challenge, constant attention, but achieving that end was like attending to a very complicated machine with many dials and balances to consider. If the task was too mundane, he would become bored and drop it entirely, if he attempted it at all. Even seemingly convoluted cases could be solved very quickly with the proper application of a Holmes brain – it took a certain level of difficulty to keep him occupied.

John's mobile vibrated in his hand. He glanced at the screen. _**New Text Message: Sherlock Holmes**_. He did not open it. "Yeah," he said quietly to the phone's backlit screen. "Now _you_ want to know where _I _am. Well, tough." Then he felt a bit silly, speaking to an inanimate object. He pocketed the device and sat back, watching the sky slowly darken behind the trees.

An hour passed. No other text alerts came, just the one that sat unopened in his inbox. At last, the sun disappeared entirely and London burst into a sea of multicoloured lights, and John decided he was cold and that it was time to go home. He stood, stretched, and began the walk back to Baker Street.

* * *

The flat was dark and quiet when John arrived, cheeks pink and eyes watery from the chill wind. His eyes gravitated automatically toward the sofa, but it was empty. The flannelette sheet still lay draped on a cushion, and there was a book on the table next to an empty mug. John tugged off his coat and stepped out of his shoes, rubbing his hands together to work some life back into his frozen fingers. Idly, he searched for Sherlock, but he wasn't at his microscope or in the kitchen. Thinking he must have gone to bed, John popped down the hallway to check, but stopped up short just outside the bathroom.

The door was open and the light was on, and Sherlock was propped on the floor with his head on the toilet seat. He was still wearing pyjama bottoms, but now his long torso was slick with sweat that bled into the waistband. He was facing away from the door, so all John saw was the limp body and curly hair, but he seemed to be asleep.

For a moment, John considered leaving him there. He was angry and he was hurt and he really wanted nothing more than to go to bed and put Sherlock from his mind for the night, but a long time ago, he had made a promise: Do no harm. He couldn't convince himself he wasn't doing harm leaving him like this. Sighing, John stepped toward the threshold. "Sherlock..."

"Don't," Sherlock replied swiftly. Not asleep then. "Just don't." Slowly, he lifted his head.

"Alright then," said John shortly, and he turned to go, but a white hand flashed out from the floor and grabbed at the outseam of his trousers. The touch did not linger – it wanted for his attention but did not beg it, leaving him free to go if he chose. John stayed, stepped back to the threshold.

"I didn't mean... that." Achingly, Sherlock uncurled himself from over the toilet and looked up at John with eyes that were red from strain. His whole body quivered intermittently like fever chills, and his cheeks were gaunt and white. It was hard to believe that this pale, shivering spectre was Sherlock at all.

"What did you mean, then?" John shifted his weight impatiently.

Sherlock blinked, taking him in with those all-seeing eyes. "You've been... You've been outside this whole time."

"Yes. Well."

"You were right," Sherlock croaked, switching gears. "You were right about everything. I don't care what you think."

John watched him carefully.

"But I... care, that you..." He seemed to be struggling for the words, and this perplexed him. Sherlock did not struggle to articulate his thoughts. He had a very large vocabulary and a talent for using it. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Didn't mean to or didn't want to?"

"Is there a difference?"

"There is, Sherlock."

He was barely comprehending. He blinked slowly, and seemed to have to issue commands to his brain several times before it obeyed. "Intention seems to indicate a lack of care for the result. John, I... I care... about what you... feel. Even if I don't understand it all the time. I..." He trailed off, swallowing hard, trying to contain another wave of nausea, but it won out in the end and Sherlock had no choice but to turn away, hanging his head over the rim of the toilet bowl again as his stomach tried, once more, to turn up something that wasn't there.

John held his breath, his own insides churning painfully as he watched his friend heaving uselessly. When it was over, he stepped past him into the washroom and stuck a flannel under the cold tap, soaking it. He folded it into a neat rectangle and knelt beside Sherlock, placing the wet fabric on the back of his neck.

"Don't have to do that," Sherlock whispered, drained by the effort. He had his head braced on the edge of the toilet again, as though he were too tired to hold it up. His eyelids fluttered as he took several steadying breaths through his mouth.

"It's no trouble," John muttered, sitting back on his heels. "But listen, Sherlock. I want to believe you. But if you do care, at all, you have to stop this. If not for yourself – fine – then... then for me. I can't pretend to understand, I don't, and I'm upset, but I will help you if you'll stop. No more drugs, ever. I can't watch you kill yourself a—"

"Okay."

"Sorry?"

"Okay."

"That's it?" John questioned suspiciously, leaning in to catch his flatmate's eye. "It's over, you're done?"

"Yes."

John took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright then. Good. That's... that's good." His eyes fell to where Sherlock's hand was curled on a knee, and he touched it tentatively, hoping to communicate better through touch than either of them could through words. Sherlock caught his fingers in his own, tangling them loosely. John felt, rather than saw, that he had gotten the message.

"Are you still angry?" Sherlock whispered.

John huffed a laugh. "Yeah," he replied honestly. "So it's lucky for you you're ill. I've never murdered a patient on purpose, but I can't guarantee I won't kill you in a few days."

Sherlock nodded his understanding.

They passed a few moments in slightly more comfortable silence, and then John's phone went off in his pocket. With an awkward glance at Sherlock, he disengaged his hand from his friend's and pulled out his mobile. _**New Text Message: DI Lestrade**_. John navigated to his inbox and read: **We should talk**. He chewed his lip and chose not to reply. Now wasn't the time; he'd go calling at the Yard in the morning, perhaps. Then an unread message caught his eye, and he remembered the text he had received from Sherlock while he was in the park. He cast a furtive glance at the detective and then opened the message.

It contained only three words.

**Worried. Please respond.**

**SH**


	4. Chapter Four

That night was a long and arduous one. John was concerned over Sherlock's messy comedown, and stayed up with him a good many hours into the night, despite the latter's reassurances that he needn't do any such thing. He did, though, with an endless supply of cool cloths and a steady hand, pushing fluids and rest in a tone that left no room for resistance. It was well past three in the morning - nearly twenty-four hours since Sherlock had been dragged out of that drug den - when the detective finally stabilised and fell into a quiet, restful sleep. Shortly thereafter, John must have done the same - his body demanded it - but he did not make it as far as his own bedroom.

Sunlight was slanting down through the windows, illuminating dancing dust motes like tiny fireflies, when John awoke on the sitting room floor. His shirt was rucked up around his chest and his arm was stuck under the Union Jack cushion at an uncomfortable angle, his hand wedged somewhere beneath the adjacent armchair. His neck ached and his hair was sticking up at odd angles. With a groan, he pulled his limbs toward himself and sat up, ignoring the little pops and cracks of protest from his spine. Blinking in the unwelcome light, he fumbled for his phone, knocking it off the side table and onto the floor, where it merrily blinked out the time: ten after seven.

Still much too early, as far as he was concerned.

The very last vestiges of John's willpower somehow served to propel him to his feet, and he pocketed his mobile before stumbling down the hallway toward his flatmate's open bedroom door. A quick peek inside showed that Sherlock was sound asleep, sprawled diagonally across his bed, the sheets pulled to his chin. His breathing was even and regular, his features relaxed. All good, then. With a sigh of relief, John crept up the stairs to his own bedroom.

He had just stripped his clothes and collapsed into bed when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

_**New Text Message: DI Lestrade**_  
**I'm downstairs. - L**

* * *

Speedy's was bright and loud, in direct contrast with the quiet closeness of 221b, its patrons buzzing animatedly over hot mugs and little sandwich plates. Outside, fat grey clouds rolled threateningly over the city, infusing the smoggy air with the sweet scent of impending rain.

John found Lestrade already settled into a corner booth, with a tall mug of coffee cradled between his hands. He looked up as John crossed the length of the cafe, and watched him carefully as he sat down across from him. "You look like hell," the DI observed, examining him over the length of the table.

"Yeah, well. I spent most of the night holding Sherlock's head up over the toilet," John replied wryly.

Greg winced. "How's he doing?"

"Fine," John said swiftly. "He's flushed most of the drug out of his system by now."

"Good." Lestrade nodded, shifting awkwardly in his seat, avoiding the other's eyes.

John sighed. "Oh, just say it already."

Lestrade's gaze snapped up to John's. "What was that about, yesterday?"

"I was angry."

"Well, so was I! But I'd thought that you and I, we'd... We should have presented a unified front. He listens to you, you know. Might've listened to _us_."

"Hardly. Besides, he's not a child, and we aren't his parents. 'Presenting a unified front' isn't going to help the situation - I told you yesterday, he does as he likes. That's all." John shook his head. "It doesn't matter, anyway."

"Like hell it doesn't - "

"I spoke with him last night, after I got back. He said he's done with it."

Greg's expression was dubious. "Just like that," he challenged. "He said those words?"

"What, those exactly? No, of course not. But I think, with our help, he'll make a concerted effort - "

Lestrade's bitter laughter cut through John's words. The DI pressed his palm down into the table. "You believe him? Please."

"I believe he'll try, yes," John replied defensively. He frowned, surprised and angry that Greg would write Sherlock off so quickly. "What more do you expect?"

With a long sigh, the DI seemed to sink a little into himself. "You seem to forget I've done this before, John. With Sherlock, it isn't so simple. With _any _addict, it's far from simple, but with him even less so. His intentions may be pure - I'll go ahead and give you that one, mate, but..." Greg paused, shaking his head as he eyed the other cautiously. "His word is good for very little, right now. In fact, I guarantee he's got a stash up there somewhere."

_In the flat?_ John thought, sceptical. _The one we searched while Sherlock was missing? _"What do you propose we do, then?"

"Well, he needs to give up his things, first of all. He keeps a syringe nearby - that needs to go. And the stash, as well, if we can find it. Second, there can't be any Work while he's detoxing, it'll only - "

"Wait, wait, wait." John put up his hands to stop Greg going any further. "You don't want him to work? Isn't that what got us into this mess in the first place? If anything, I'd say keep him working as much as possible. He was bored, that's why he picked up the habit again - having a case to work on will... satisfy him, occupy him. The Work keeps him sane."

The DI shook his head. "The Work distracts him, that's about it. I might have a case or two to throw him right now, but what happens when the next dry spell pops up?"

"Then I'll keep an eye on him, just like on any danger night - "

"Suppose you're not there to watch over him next time."

John laughed, but it was mirthless, a laugh of sarcastic disbelief, a _nothing ever happens to me _laugh. "Where do you expect me to go?"

"It doesn't matter, John. You can't be by his side twenty-four-seven. That's a fact. He will have to re-learn how to cope with 'boredom' on his own."

"It won't kill you to give him an old case or something."

Now it was Lestrade's turn to laugh. "You know how much trouble I could get into? The answer is no. No cases, at least not from me."

"So then what?"

"After a little while, if he's stayed clean, then I'll start bringing cases again."

"And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime, private cases only, so long as he's clean. One of us needs to stick close to him all the time. And keep him below the Yard's notice. The last thing I need is for anybody finding out my consultant is an addict." Greg lowered his voice, his gaze softening as he regarded John in the harsh light of the cafe's fluorescents. "Look, the last time... I made the mistake of letting him work through detox. It's not good for him, it's just too much going on at once. And he relapsed almost immediately. He needs motivation in order to do this, and us wanting him to do it... that's not going to be enough. You said it yourself: he does as he pleases. The Work is important to him, and if he can only get it by getting clean, then he'll do it."

There was reason and sense in what Lestrade was saying, but John didn't want to admit to it. He wasn't sure how he was going to keep Sherlock from climbing the walls - or worse - if he didn't have anything to work on. "I understand what you're saying, but I just... He's not a child, you know," he pointed out again. "Giving him something to work on isn't going to... reward his bad behaviour or anything."

Lestrade huffed a laugh into his coffee cup. "Are we talking about the same Sherlock Holmes? Have you met him?"

* * *

In the end, John had no choice but to acquiesce. Regardless, he knew that it would be a week or so at least before Sherlock was ready to work. Once his latest binge was completely out of his system, the effects of withdrawal would start to set in quickly, and at that point he'd be too ill to do much of anything. After that... well, they'd have to cross that bridge when they came to it. For now, they'd have enough to worry about just dealing with the physical effects. As he and Lestrade parted ways that morning, John couldn't help thinking that his life was about to become very complicated indeed.

By the time he returned upstairs, John could feel his eyelids growing heavy, despite that it was only half nine in the morning. These past few days had not been kind to him, and he was already feeling the strain.

"Lestrade came by, I see."

Sherlock was seated at the dining table when John walked in. He was poised over his microscope, and John didn't even see him look up. He stood in the threshold of the kitchen, watching as Sherlock's thin fingers played over the focus dials.

"Yeah," he said at last. "He was, uh..."

"Yes. I know." Sherlock's eyes flicked upward for half a second, then back down again. "It's in the sitting room, John. On the mantel. The wood panel beneath the skull is loose and will prise open. It's there."

John glanced fleetingly toward the sitting room. "What is?"

"What you're looking for."

"And what am I looking for?"

Sherlock's gaze slid to the sitting room threshold, to John's face, and then disappeared behind the microscope's eyepieces again.

"Uh-huh. Right." John walked to the mantelpiece where the skull stared out at him from abyssal black eye-sockets. Carefully setting it aside, he edged a finger into the wood paneled edge of the mantelpiece and, just as Sherlock had said, it slid free of the structure itself. John lifted it and peered inside. Inside a sheath of clear plastic were two capped hypodermic syringes. "Are these the only ones?"

For a moment, the detective considered it. "Used one in my coat pocket."

"I disposed of that one already."

"Then yes. Those are the only ones."

"And are they clean, at least? Unused?"

Sherlock gave John a withering look. "Yes."

Reaching into the tiny compartment, John withdrew the syringes and inspected them in the light. He chewed his lip for a moment. "Why did you want me to know where these were?"

"Because I know you've seen Lestrade, and I know what he would have wanted to speak with you about. I know he would have told you to find them and dispose of them, and I know you would have looked for them."

"But I wouldn't have found them. I never would have found them there. Why did you _tell _me where they were?"

"Because I wanted to, John."

Very carefully, John pocketed the little plastic bag and replaced the panel and the skull in their rightful places. _Because I wanted to_. That had to mean something. How could Lestrade possibly have so little faith, when Sherlock clearly meant what he said? This was a step in the right direction, and John wished dearly that Lestrade had witnessed it. He couldn't believe that last night's conversation hadn't gotten into Sherlock's head. He just couldn't.

"Thank you," said John at last. "Sherlock. I think it's important - "

"Don't." Sherlock held up a hand for silence. "Really, don't."

John didn't.


End file.
